Enter King, Queen, LAERTES, and a Coffin, with Lords, and Priests, attendant.

The Queen, the Courtiers. What is that they fol
Tow,

And with fuch maimed rites? this doth betoken
The corfe they follow did with defperate hand
Foredo its own life; 'twas of fome estate.
Couch we awhile, and mark.

Laer. What ceremony elfe?

Ham. That is Laertes, a moft noble youth :. mark--

Laer. What ceremony elfe?

Prieft. Her obfequies have been fo far enlarged As we have warranty; her death was doubtful; And but that great command o'erfways the order, She fhould in ground unfanctified have lodged 'Till the laft trump. For charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles, fhould be thrown on her; Yet here the is allowed her virgin rites,

Her maiden ftrewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

Laer. Mult no more be done?
Prieft. No more be done!

We thould profane the fervice of the dead
To fing a requiem, and fuch reft to her
As to peace-parted fouls.

Laer. Lay her i' th' the earth;
And from her fair and unpolluted flefh
May violets fpring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A miniftring angel fhall my fifter be,

When thou lyeft howling.

Ham. What, the fair Ophelia !

Queen. Sweets to the fweet, farewel!

I hoped thou fhouldft have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, fweet maid, And not have Arewed thy grave.

Laer. O treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that curfed head,
Whofe wicked deed thy moft ingenious fenfe
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth a while,
'Till I have caught her once more in my arms;

[Laertes leaps into the Grave. Now pile your duft upon the quick and dead, 'Till of this flat a mountain you have made, To o'ertop old Pelion, or the fkyish head Of blue Olympus.

Ham. [difcovering himself.] What is he, whofe griefs

Bear fuch an emphasis? whofe phrase of sorrow Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I,

Hamlet the Dane.

[Hamlet leaps into the Grave.

Laer. The devil take thy foul!

[Grappling with him.

Ham. Thou prayeft not well.

I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat-
For though I am not fplenetive and rash,
Yet I have in me fomething dangerous,

Which let thy wifdom fear. Hold off thy hand.
King. Pluck them afundèr.---

Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet---

Hor. Good my Lord, be quiet.

[The Attendants part them.

[theme,

Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this

Until my eye lids will no longer wag.

Queen. Oh my fon! what theme?

Ham. I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not with all their quantity of love

Make up my fum.

What wilt thou do for her?

King. O, he is mad, Laertes.

Queen. For love of God, forbear him.

Ham. Come, fhew me what thoul't do. Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thy felf?

Woo't drink up eifel, eat a crocodile? (69)

(69) Would drink up Efill, eat a crocodile ?] This word has through all the editions teen diftinguished by Italic characters, as if it were the proper name of fome river; and fo, I dare fay, all the editors have from time to time understood it to be. But then this must be fome river in Denmark, and there is gone there fo called, nor is there any near it in name that I know of, but Yffel, from which the province of Overyffell derives its title in the German Flanders. Befides, Hamlet is not propofing any impoflibilities to Laertes, as the drinking up a river would be; but he rather feems to mean, wilt thou refolve to do things the most shocking and distasteful to human nature? and behold, I am as refolute. I am perfuaded the Poet wrote;

Wilt drink up eifel, eat a crocodile?

i. e. Wilt thou fwallow down large draughts of vinegar? The propofition, indeed, is not very grand; but the doing it might be as diftafteful and unfavoury as cating the flefl of a crocodile. And now there is neither an impoflibility, nor an anticlimax; and the lowness of the idea is in fome meature removed by the uncommon term. Chaucer has it in his Ro maunt of the Role:

So evil-hewed was her coloure,

Her femed to have livid in langoure;
She was like thing for hungir bed,
That lad her life onely by dred
Knedin with eijei ftrong and egre;

And thereto fhe was lene and megre.

But left this authority fhould be thought of too long a date, and the word to have become obfolete in our Author's time, I'll produce a paffage where it is ufed by himself. In a poem of his called Complaint, he thus expreffes himself :

Whilft, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eifel 'gainft my frong infection:
No bitterness, that I will bitter think,
No double penance to correct correction.
So, likewife, in Sir Thomas More's poems;
-Remember wherewithal,

How Chrift for thee fafted with eifel and gall.

Eifle, acetum, vinegar, faith Somner; and the word is acknowledged by Minthew, Skinner, Blunt, &c.

I'll do't. ---Doft thou come hither but to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her; and fo will I;
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, 'till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Offa like a wart! nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

Queen. This is mere madness;

And thus a while the fit will work on him:
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His filence will fit drooping.

Ham. Hear you, Sir---

What is the reafon that you use me thus ?
I loved you ever; but it is no matter---
Let Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew, the dog will have his day. [Ex.
King. I pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.

[Exit Hor. Strengthen your patience in our last night's fpeech. [To Laertes. We'll put the matter to the prefent push. Good Gertrude, fet fome watch over your fon: This grave fhall have a living monument. An hour of quiet fhortly fhall we fee;

'Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt.

SCENE changes to a Hall, in the Palace.

Enter HAMLET and HORAT FO.

Ham. So much for this, you now fhall fee the other.

You do remember all the circumftance?

Hor. Remember it, my Lord?

[ing,

Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fight

That would not let me fleep; methought I lay
Worfe than the mutines in the bilboes; rashness
(And praised be rashness for it) lets us know,
Our indifcretion fometimes ferves us well,

When our deep plots do fail; and that fhould teach us,

There's a divinity that fhapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Hor. That is most certain.
Ham. Up from my cabin,

My fea-gown fcarf'd about me in the dar
Groped I to find out them; had my defire,
Fingered their packet, and in fine withdrew
To mine own room again; making fo bold
(My fears forgetting manners) to unfeal
Their grand commitlion, where I found, Horatio,
A royal knavery; an exact command,
Larded with many feveral forts of reasons,
Importing Denmark's health and England's too,
(With, ho! fuch bugs and goblins in my life)
That on the furpervize, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the ax,
My head fhould be ftruck off.

Hor. Is it poffible?

Ham. Here's the commiffion, read it at more leifure;

But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed!
Hor. I beseech you.

Ham. Being thus benetted round with villainy, (Ere I could make a prologue, to my bane (70)

(70) Being thus benetted round with villains, Eer I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play. I fate me down, &c.]

This paffage is certainly corrupt both in the text and pointing. Making a prologue to his brain is fuch a phrase as Shakespeare would never have used to mean, e'er I could form my thoughts to making a prologue. I communicated

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